Warning: There are no actual adventures here. Everything went so well, so much better than I expected!

Tuesday morning: I reported to the hospital at 9:15 for surgical prep. They took us back into a cubicle, gave me a wonderful hospital gown and started prep. IV started, lots of questions (including me telling them what surgery I was having to make sure I knew). Anesthetist, interns all over the place, and finally my surgeon came to talk with my wife and I. He knew I had lost 100 pounds pre-surgery and was extremely impressed. I told him I had been having second thoughts and he told me that this was my last chance to pull out, and we talked for a few minutes and I decided to continue.

He left and then they wheeled me into the surgical suite. The last thing I remember was moving myself from the transport be to the surgical table and that’s it.

I woke up in recovery and was quite disoriented, but not in a ton of pain. The guy next to me was being belligerent about needing to pee and not believing that he had a catheter that was taking care of things for him. He was getting very anxious, but eventually they calmed him down. My room was not ready yet, so I had to stay there for about an hour (I wasn’t keeping great track of time, though). I was dozing off and this nice nurse kept telling me to breathe. After a few times, I remembered to tell her that my CPAP was under the bed and she should hook it up for me. After that i could doze in peace.

They eventually moved me to my room, and when I moved myself from the transport bed to my room bed, that was when I felt the pain. Moving my legs over didn’t hut, but when lifting my shoulders off the bad, I could feel the ‘too many sit-ups’ pain. It was not nearly as much pain as I expected. Within about an hour, they wanted me to get up and move, and I felt great! I was up and striding the hallways with no real pain. No food or drink Tuesday, but they brought me some ice chips to keep my mouth moist. Tuesday’s excitement was staying up way too late watching the super exciting Royals/A’s baseball game.

Wednesday started too early with nurse visits and vitals, and the breakfast! proteined chicken broth, decaf tea, SF jello and watered down apple juice. They gave me one ouch little cups and I had to put everything in the little cups and drink them out of that, while keeping track of how many I consumed through out the day. I also got up and walked a ton, creating a walking path through the ward that gave me about 3/4 of a mile per trip. I ends up walking 11k steps (5.6 miles) on Wednesday and the nurses were all very happy. I have to believe that my pre-surgery fitness success really helped me here. I also managed to get down 80 ounces of stuff throughout the day

This morning (Thursday) started similarly, breakfast and walking, there was nutrition class to go over the post-surgery plan, and then I was discharged about 11:00 and was free! On the way home, we stopped by my work (which is also where my wife started working Monday) to see her and to sop by my group to let them know everything was going well and I would see them in a few weeks. Now I’m home and laying out the plan for all of the med and food of my new life!

All of the nurses and staff at the hospital were fantastic, there were 5 others who had surgery either Monday or Tuesday and we would see each other in the hall walking. Everyone was doing well, but they were in a lot more pain that I was. Three of us sat together in the nutrition class this morning and everyone was doing better that they were yesterday.

I never thought that there was a chance I would feel so good this quickly after surgery!

My advice to all of the pre-surgery folks is to get in as good shape physically as you can, because I am sure it had a lot to do with how good I feel.

Rob